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“Why have you waited to...seal our bargain until our wedding night?” she asked as the car pulled away from the front of the old house that was already starting to look like itself again. Its old glory restored for the small price of Angelina’s life.
What a bargain,he thought darkly.
Of course, neither Angelina nor her noxious father had any idea of the bargain he intended to pose to her directly—but he was getting ahead of himself.
And if this time was different—if he had found himself captivated by this woman in ways he did not fully understand and had never experienced before—well. He was sure he would pay a great penance for that, too, before long.
But she was gazing at him, waiting for him to answer her.
“It is customary to wait, is it not?” Because he was happy to have her think him deeply traditional. For now. He watched her, but she did not turn around to watch her life disappear behind her. So she did not see her sisters, clutching each other’s hands as they stood at the top of the stairs, staring after her. She did not see her mother in the window, her face twisting. She did not note the absence of her father from these scenes of despair. “Some things have fallen out of favor in these dark times, I have no doubt, but I hope a white wedding will always be in fashion.” He allowed his mouth to curve. “Or a slightly off-white wedding, in this case. It is your piano playing, I fear. It undoes all my good intentions.”
Angelina looked at him, her blue eyes searching his face though her own looked hot. “You have had many lovers, if the tabloids are to be believed.”
“First, you must never believe the tabloids. They are paid to write fiction, not fact. But second, I have always kept my affairs and my wives separate.”
She cleared her throat. “And now? Will you continue in the same vein?”
He picked up her hand, and toyed with the ring he’d put there, that great, gleaming red ruby that shone like blood in the summer light that fell in through the car windows. “What is it you are asking me?”
“Do you conduct your affairs while you’re married?” She sat straighter, though she didn’t snatch her hand back from him. “Will one of my duties be to look the other way?”
“Are you asking me if I plan to be faithful? Less than an hour after we said our vows before God, man, and your father’s creditors?”
“I am. Do you?”
Again, he was struck by how different she was from the rest of his brides—none of whom had seemed to care who he touched, or when. It was as if Angelina had cast a spell on him. Enchanted him, despite everything.
“As faithful as you are to me, Angelina.” His voice was darker than it should have been, but it was one more thing he couldn’t seem to control around her. “That is how faithful I will be to you in return.”
This time he was certain he could see those words, like another set of vows, fill up the car like the voluminous skirts she wore.
“That’s easy enough then,” she replied with that tartness that surprised and delighted him every time she dared show it. “I have only ever loved one thing in my life. My piano. As long as you provide me with one to play as I wish, as you promised, why shouldn’t I keep the promises I made to you?”
He lifted her hand to his mouth, and then, idly, sucked one of her fingers into the heat of his mouth.
“I’ve never understood cheating,” she continued, her voice prim, though he could see the way she trembled. He could taste it. “Surely it cannot be that difficult to keep a vow. And if it is, why make it in the first place?”
“Ah, yes. The certainty of youth.” He applied more suction, and she shuddered beautifully. “You know very little of passion, I think. It has a habit of making a mockery of those who think in terms of black and white.”
Her eyes were much too blue. “Have you cheated on your wives before?”
And he had expected silence. That was typical. Or if there were questions, this being Angelina who seemed so shockingly unafraid of him, perhaps more pointed questions about murderers or mysterious deaths. Or euphemisms that didn’t quite mention either. But not this. Not what he was tempted to imagine was actual possessiveness on her part. He noted that the hand he was not holding was balled into a fist.
Benedetto would have sworn that he was far too jaded for passion to make a mockery of him, and yet here he was. Hoping for things that could never be.
“I have never had the opportunity to grow bored,” he replied, deliberately. With no little edge to his voice. “They were all gone too soon.”
He watched her swallow hard. He watched the column of her neck move.
He wished he could watch himself and this dance of his as closely.
“You have not told me your expectations,” she said, shifting her gaze away from him and aiming it somewhere in front of her. He found he missed the weight of her regard. “You’re obviously a very wealthy man. Many wealthy men have staff to take on the position normally held by a wife.”
“I assure you that I do not intend to take my staff to my bed.”
He saw the lovely red color on her cheeks brighten further but she pushed on, and her carefully even voice did not change. “I’m not referring to your bed. I’m referring to the duties involved in running a great house. Or in your case, a castle.”
“You are welcome to engage my housekeeper in battle for supremacy, Angelina. But I warn you, Signora Malandra is a fearsome creature indeed. And jealously guards what she sees as hers.”
